“Decisions made by urban planners today will shape the way we live together in cities for decades to come,” Thomas Silberhorn, Parliamentary State Secretary to the German Development Minister – June 1, 2016, German Habitat Forum
A GIZ Nexus delegation comprising 15 people from four Asian cities attended the IFAT fair, the world’s leading trade fair for water, sewage, waste and raw materials management, in Munich (May 30-31, 2016) and the German Habitat Forum in Berlin (June 1-2, 2016).
At IFAT 2016, the municipal authorities were exposed to several German state-of-the-art environmental technologies on solid waste and waste water management with a strong emphasis on recycling. This helped GIZ Nexus partner cities to understand the possibility of achieving sustainability through the application of advanced environmental technologies, improved infrastructure, investment efficiency, as well as recovering and effectively re-using resources. The city representatives took several technological solutions on board and will engage in further dialogue with the technology suppliers for implementation of infrastructure projects in their cities’ Nexus pilot projects. The representatives from Ulaanbaatar used the opportunity to sign a contract with a German company on disaggregation of sludge for their waste water treatment plant. The relevant equipment will be delivered at the end of June 2016 for installation prior to the prestigious ASEM meeting with 53 presidents from Europe and Asia in Ulaanbaatar in mid- July.
The IFAT, the “hardware side of sustainability”, serves as a build-up to the German Habitat Forum which is the “software side of sustainability”. At the Forum in Berlin, held on June 1 and 2, the delegation had the opportunity to discuss the challenges of sustainable urban development and possible solutions with well-known high- ranking international representatives of both think tanks and the political stage, among them Minister Gerd Müller from the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Mr. Michael Müller, Lord Mayor of Berlin and Secretaries of State. Leading questions were: What role can cities play in achieving international recognition as main actors with regard to climate goals? What frameworks need to be in place for municipalities to pursue sustainable development? What is the vision of a city that provides a good place to live? And how should the Zero Draft of the New Urban Agenda be revised to effectively promote improved living conditions in urban centres by linking it to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development?
Sustainable urban development brings together many aspects such as urban climate and environmental protection, social equity, security, green production and quality of life for all citizens.
More than 1,000 experts on urban development, representatives from municipalities and leading figures in politics, business, academe and civil society from all over the world spent the two days at the German Habitat Forum working out recommendations for the new Urban Agenda to be approved during the Habitat lll Conference in Quito, Ecuador in October 2016, on creating livable cities for the future.
In conclusion, the Berlin Recommendations coming out of the discussions focused on local authorities: “cities and local authorities need greater recognition at the national and the international level for their role as key development players, and the powers and funding to fulfil that role”. The required decentralization process should be guided by the subsidiarity principle for decisions to be made at the lowest possible level, as close to the citizens as possible.
The Berlin Recommendations are a valuable contribution to the new urban development agenda that the United Nations intends to adopt in October 2016 at the third global human settlements conference, Habitat III, in Quito, Ecuador.
Before the conference in Quito, one final preparatory committee meeting for the Habitat summit will take place in Surabaya in Indonesia from July 25-27. The Nexus project will prepare a side event at the preparatory committee meeting to present the urban Nexus as a tool for the repeatedly required cross-sectoral/integrated urban planning, management and implementation to reach sustainable development